As mobile networks and data communication technologies have evolved, calls can be made and received on phones not only using voice calling capabilities of mobile networks, but also using a data communication capability of these phones. Applications can also be run on data enabled phones, for example, smartphones, to allow users to obtain various services through data networks.
There are times when a user's phone does not have access to a telecommunications network, for example, a voice network for making and receiving voice calls, but has a data network capability on the phone using a carrier's mobile data network or a Wi-Fi® connection of Wi-Fi Alliance Corporation. As used herein, “carrier” refers to a telecommunications network operator or service provider that provides communication services, for example, telecommunication services to end users and controls elements, for example, radio spectrum allocation, wireless network infrastructure, back haul infrastructure, billing systems, customer care systems, provisioning computer systems, repair systems, etc., required for delivering communication services to the end users. For example, a user's phone may be out of mobile network coverage but is connected to a Wi-Fi® network. In another case, the user may explicitly turn off the mobile network on the phone while roaming to avoid high roaming charges, but the user's phone may be connected to a Wi-Fi® network. In such cases, the user is unable to make or receive calls using a voice calling capability of the telecommunications network. When a calling party makes a call to a user's mobile number, the call cannot be routed to the user's phone in the above cases and the call attempt is incomplete. If the user has a conventional call completion service such as missed call notifications or voicemail enabled on the mobile number, the calling party will receive an option to send a voice message. However, the user is unable to receive the incoming call even if the user has data network capability on the phone. Hence, there is a need for routing an incoming call to a called party device using the data network capability of the phone when the called party device does not have a voice calling capability.
In another scenario, a user may have multiple numbers. However, at a particular time, the user may not have access to all of the multiple numbers. As a result, the user is unable to receive an incoming call from a calling party to one of the multiple numbers to which the user does not have access at the time. Hence, there is a need for routing an incoming missed call received for one of the numbers belonging to the user to an application of a user device, for example, a mobile phone or a tablet using a data network.
Hence, there is a long felt need for a method and a system for routing an incoming call made to one of multiple numbers of a user, to a call receiving client application deployed on one or more user devices when one of the numbers being called is not reachable. Moreover, there is a need for a method and a system for routing an incoming call to a call receiving client application deployed on one or more user devices using a data network when the user devices do not have a voice calling capability on a telecommunications network. Furthermore, there is a need for a method and a system for routing an incoming missed call received for one of the numbers belonging to the user, to a call receiving client application deployed on one or more user devices using the data network.